Yeah, how exactly have Bush and Cheney profited versus had they just spouted invectives and done nothing?
Well, they got themselves elected to a second term didn’t they? What better way to cement their sought after permanent Republican majority?
Unfortunately nothing we can do in Iraq will stop the next 9/11. I pray I live to see many more 9/11s.
WTF does that mean???
Yeah, that plan worked well in the last Congressional election didn’t it?
Correct. Iraq was on the table as a target four days after 9/11. There were quite a lot of arguments between the “realists”, led by Colin Powell, and the neo-cons. From what I can tell Bush himself had no pre-conceived notions but let himself be persuaded by the neo-cons, particularly Dick Cheney.
If PNAC had their way we would’ve taken Saddam Hussein out in 1998.
I was leafing through some of my books because I swear I remember reading somewhere that in the mid 90s Cheney said in so many words the idea of invading Iraq was crazy but I can’t find it. I wonder what changed his mind if that was the case.
You greatly overestimate the power of Bush’s reach into military circles. Besides, if there was some sort of order to not get him then surely it would’ve been in a book or two about the subject. 
Getting Osama in 2004 would’ve sealed the deal on Bush’s re-election, besides.
I don’t know whether you guys have forgotten, or whether you never paid attention in the first place, but the stated reasons for going into Iraq are no mystery.
It goes like this: 911 highlighted a serious problem facing the U.S. - the rise of Islamic extremism from a regional threat to a global threat. The immediate problem was Afghanistan and its becoming a haven for the terrorists directly responsible for attacking the U.S. So the first order of business was to take down the Taliban and root out al-Qaida to eliminate the immediate threat to the U.S.
But then what? You can’t just park 50,000 troops in Afghanistan forever and fool yourself that the problem is solved. Some people thought the problem was one of policing only - to arrest terrorists and encourage other countries to arrest them. The Neocons argued that so long as terrorists had state sponsors, policing wouldn’t work. If the state won’t allow your police in, what do you do? There was already a history of ‘revolving door’ arrests of terrorists, where a state like Syria would make a big show of arresting a terrorist, then quietly release them out the back door a few weeks later.
The Neocons had a different plan. The real problem, they said, was not just terrorism, but the intersection of terrorism with state backing and financing. Unfortunately, there were plenty of state sponsors or enablers of terror in the Middle East. Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, etc. The Neocons believe that the root cause of Islamic extremism isn’t the religion itself, but the fact that the Middle East is full of dictators who stay in power in large part by deflecting blame for the failures of their countries onto Israel and the West. These dictatorships have a vested interest in seeing terrorism flourish - forcing Israel and the United States to retaliate keeps the flames of hatred alive, and allows them to play the populist game. That’s what Saddam was doing - a secularist himself, in the previous few years he had been making increasingly bold overtures to Islamic extremists, joining their cause, funding suicide bombers in the Palestinian territories, providing safe harbor to people like al-Zarqawi, and the biggest worry was that he had huge arsenals of weapons of mass destruction. It was felt that it was only a matter of time before those weapons landed in the hands of terrorists.
The Neocons argued that so long as the status quo in the middle east remained unchanged, terrorism would continue, and be encouraged, funded, and provided weapons by other states. That meant a cycle of increasingly violent attacks as terrorists gained access to more deadly weapons. At some point, they’d get their hands on a nuke, or on some powerful chemical or biological weapons.
The answer, according to the Neocons, is in democracy. Get rid of the dictatorships, build up middle classes, solve the Palestinian problem, and people will naturally gravitate away from terrorism. But how to achieve that? Well, you had Iraq sitting right there. Technically in violation of its cease-fire, giving the U.S. a cassus belli for attack. Situated conveniently next to Iran and other problem nations. A vicious dictator in power. A population that they felt would be eternally grateful for being freed and which would become an ally of the U.S.
Iraq was to be the spearhead - a new democracy, pro-American, to act as an example for other countries in the region. If Iraq became democratic, its economy would boom, the people would be happier, and immense pressure would be put on other dictatorship by their own citizens.
Furthermore, the U.S. could pull its troops out of Saudi Arabia (one of Bin Laden’s stated reasons for attacking the U.S. was the presence of U.S. soldiers on holy ground in Saudi Arabia - but those soldiers couldn’t leave so long as Saddam was in power, as they were needed to maintain the no-fly zones). Absent the need to maintain the no-fly zones, those soldiers could be re-based in Iraq or sent home.
Iraq would then give the U.S. more leverage in the region - a carrot-and-stick approach. Iraq is the carrot - an example of what Democracy can do for you. The stick is the U.S.'s ability to maintain a large military force in Iraq to pressure neighboring countries.
The Neocon strategy was to completely overhaul the middle east to the benefit of the people there - get rid of the dictatorships, improve their standard of living, eliminate the desperation, and drain the swamp breeding terrorists. ‘Drain the Swamp’ was in fact a common phrase among Neocons.
Oil had nothing to do with it. I know ‘oil!’ is a rallying cry for lefty conspiratorialists, but people who understand economics know better. Oil is fungible. The Middle Eastern countries have to sell their oil to keep their economies propped up. There was exactly zero possibility that Iraq could somehow cut off oil to the U.S in a way that would meaningfully impact oil supplies. And there was no way that the U.S. could ‘take over’ Iraq’s oil anyway. In fact, a pet plan of the Neocons was the notion of an ‘oil trust’, in which Iraqi oil revenue would be turned directly over to the people and used to help them build up their economy and create an instant middle class. There were never any designs on Iraq’s oil money. Ever.
Yes, Sam beautifully laid out the neo-con’s grand dream. There were certainly enough people in positions of power who basically said “are you friggin’ crazy?” but they lost the internal argument.
Haliburton and Bush & Cheney’s oil buddies have made huge profits, just for starters. Also, I expect that Bush thought he was going to show up his father by doing what he “couldn’t do”, or more realistically what Bush the Elder was too bright to do. And as said they got re-elected. Also, they got the chance to impose their vision of a proper legal/tax structure on the Iraqis, which is one reason Iraq is so screwed up. Also, they got to kill lots of Muslims, which I’m sure was a big turn on for them.
Yeah, BS.
I think he meant it in the sense of seeing more September 11ths, not in the sense of shorthand for terrorist attacks. Kind of like one of my favorite jokes as a kid:
“Do the British have the fourth of July?”
“Of course not.”
“Really?! What do they do between the third and the fifth, then?”
*You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all the time. **
Well, here’s an opinion (and I’m sure it will be dismissed as laughably simplistic): A significant portion of the reason that America went into Iraq may quite possibly be visible in these five minutes. How could a cowboy stomach that being the moment of his presidency?
Yeah, I’m serious.
I think Sam Stone’s post is the most level-headed look at the situation so far, in this thread.
I do believe the NeoCons had an unselfish motive.
I also believe the whole Vietnam debacle was a genuine attempt to promote a better lifestyle/ideology.
I believe communism was a genuine attempt to improve the human condition… level the field and such.
I write this without any bit of cynicism. I truly believe these things.
But, ideologies often just don’t fly in the face of reality.
My guess (just a guess, mind you), is that the U.S. will take pains in the next decade to repair the damage that was caused with this recent ideological mistake.
Keep in mind, friends, the US foreign policy may be seen as a complete disaster now, but we are still seen as the place to come to for opportunity. Many, many people from many nations still come here for their education, and many stay to live their lives here. It’s a foreign policy failure (yes, bad bad bad), but not a complete national failure. The U.S. is not going down the crapper. One administration does not a nation make.
We will most likely fail in bringing democracy to the Middle East. It will eventually happen, though. Maybe 500 years from now. It certainly won’t come from us now. Forced Democracy is an oxymoron.
I think that GWB wanted to go to war aganst Iraq from the beginning, possibly for the reasons: Saddam put a bounty on GHWB’s head back in the Gulf War, Halliburton, with ties to Dick Cheney, wanted to control iraq’s oil, and as far as i know, Iraq Gov’t passed legislation basically allowing American Big Oil to control somewhat Iraq’s oil supply. If it wasn’t for the terrorist attacks in '01, i believe the iraq invasion would’ve happened even sooner. IMHO, Saddam posed no threat to anyone because the US and UN have been bearing down on him since the gulf war. Saddam was a blowhard who was all bark and no bite as of our invasion. Bush totally ignored the threat of the other IRA country, who was and still is free to develop nukes, which are far more formidible than saddams best weapons, i.e. unguided scud missles. Saddam imposed a rule based on fear but apparently, as much as un PC as this sounds, kept his people under much better control than our seeded democracy ever will.
The Defense Department…the Pentagon disagrees with you, Sam.
This news item from Friday, April 6, might be of some interest to you. Here’s a portion:
I saw an interview with someone formerly with the CIA who said that the claims about Zarqawi and the information that Colin Powell presented to the UN came from the Bush Administration. They did not come from the CIA. The interview was on Hardball on MSNBC.
There are a hundred threads in the archive in which Sam Stone tells us of course it’s all about WMD, and that there are WMD everywhere including inside Saddam’s palaces.
There are a hundred threads talking about how Saddam and OBL were effectively at war as A-Q tried to make inroads into northern Iraq pre-9/11.
USA policy has created opposition, the extreme of that oppositon takes up arms; the post-conflict occupation of Iraq is just a larger scale example of how that has happened for the past 50 years - it ain’t nothing new.
The Neocons aren’t fighting terrorism, they need terrorism as a cloak, and under which they further their imperial goals - feel scared in small town Wyoming, guess why ?
It’s about oil and empire, always has been.
Saddam and Osama thought little of each other. Saddam isn’t a true enough Muslim for Osama’s tastes.
I think that Sam Stone’s post is one of the reasons that there was popular support for the war at certain levels.
There are other reasons for differant people, but in this case, there were also plenty of flaws in the reasoning.
There were also plenty of people who understood the problems, and those saw straight through some of the transparent mistruths, but they simply didn’t have the power to do much about it.
Why did the anti’s not have the power to prevent this war?
I think maybe many of us had creeping doubts but attitudes were not hardened enough. Those attitudes are much harder now, but would it prevent an attack on Iran if that country invaded Iraq ?(unlikely I know, but how much provocation would we take before deciding we ‘need to do something’)
Quite a number of interested parties saw opportunities, and they had the means to access those with the decision making power, and reinforced the latters’ opinions.
The power brokers just could not see a down side, install democracy, use it as a bridgehead in the Middle East to spread democracy, strategic importance, especially with parts of the former Soviet Union disintegrating, lots of oil money to finance it, concerns over Pakistan with its nuclear devices and its Islamic regime.
There might well have been a cynical belief that when it all went well, the fact that the purported reasons for the war were lies, we would just sit back down and continue being comfortable, and bask in the warm glow of the spread of human rights in an area notorious for abuses.
There may have been some loftier currents as well, but it was all about oil. bush had to rush in before the the summer so that the oil supplies would be secured, and oil start pumping to bring down prices before the election. We all know that one didn’t work out.
Plan B, and one that IMHO helped tip the scales on the election for Bushco was the old “we need a war president to see this through.”
Bush is/was an alcoholic cokehead. there is an almost overwhelming correlation between alcoholism and being an overwhelmingly selfish prick.
It was all about Bush getting himself re-elected. If oil prices came down and Iraqi’s were dancing in the streets, he would have had a landslide. Next best thing is to “stay the course” “war president” ad nauseum that managed to carry enough electorial votes. And of course big oil were among the Bush dynasty’s big backers.
Sam Stone makes a great case for the Madison Ave spin machine, but that’s all it was.